Friday, June 29, 2012

Thursday, June 28, 2012

We got some haddock the other day and from past experience I think the best way of cooking haddock is making fish cakes, if you are not deep frying it for fish and chips. I do love deep fried food but the rest of my family detests it. So I tried making it healthy. I made these hot and spicy bite size fish cakes, which is served with rice, “dal sedho” (boiled red lentils) and “bati posto” (spicy white poppy seed paste).

For dal sedho (boiled red lentils) all you need to do is wash and boil red lentils in salted water for 20-25 minutes or until fully cooked. You need to add in enough water so they don’t stick to the bottom of the pan. Once the lentils are cooked, in a separate pan make the “tarka”. Heat 2-3 tbsp of mustard oil (or you can use any cooking oil if you cant get hold of it!), whole red chilli broken into 2/3 pieces and 1 tsp of whole cumin seeds. Fry for a minute or two or until you get the chilli, crispy almost burnt, remove from fire and pour over the boiled dal. Check for seasoning and serve it with hot boiled rice. You can also add some roughly chopped red onions.

Posto is a typical Bengali dish. In-fact Bengalis can be divided in to two groups on this. Ones who love any preparation of posto and the others who secretly like having it but would love to tease the other group who openly loves posto.

Ideally “bati-posto” is done in a pressure cooker, but I tried making it on hob. For this you need 100 gm or so poppy seeds (you can find these seeds in the Indian shop near spices section). Dry grind them in a coffee grinder. Add water to it and make it a smooth paste. Keep it loose. Now add and mix some finely chopped green chillies, red onions, salt and 2-3 tbsp of mustard oil to it and then start cooking it on the hob. Stir continuously so that it doesn’t stick to the bottom of the pan. When the water from the posto is almost gone, take it off the hob and serve with rice.

This fish cakes are very spicy and you can have them just like that or with main meals. For this I boiled the 2 fillets of haddock in water for 10-15 minutes and boiled 2 medium sized potatoes separately till they are fully cooked. Mash the fish and potatoes together (make sure there are no fish bones left in the mash). Add red chilli powder, cumin powder, coriander powder and aamchur powder, ginger-garlic paste, 1 tsp each. Next add salt, fresh chopped coriander, green chillies, pea nuts, all as per your taste. Mix every thing together and then make small cakes out of the mixture. Cover them well with breadcrumbs and shallow fry them in oil. Serve with rice.

Friday, June 22, 2012

First I receive a baking book and then some chocolate for review. Both have no connection between them but it happened almost at the same time. May be this is called coincidence. Anyway, I received these two bars of chocolates form Seed and Bean for review recently and here is what I think about them.

The first one is Organic Creamy White Chocolate flavoured with lemon and poppy seeds. Initially, I was quite sceptical about the combination but when I tested it, it felt like I am eating the lemon and poppy seed cake, the only difference is its texture. The white chocolate has a very creamy, sweet and smooth texture. It melts in mouth and when the chocolate is gone you will have some poppy seed left in your palate. Which is not necessarily a bad thing. If you like sweet chocolates then this is definitely one for you to try. The unique thing about this bar is the addition of the seeds. I haven't tried anything like this before and must say I liked what I had.

The second one is Organic Extra Dark Chocolate flavoured with mandarin and ginger. Now this one is my favourite. With 72% cocoa solids the bar tasted smooth bitter-sweet, I would stress more on bitter than sweet. It will leave you with an aftertaste of orange with slight heat of ginger. And to top it all this particular bar is vegan.I loved it.

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

I love those eyes. Even though this is not a perfect photo but it has potential. The reason because this picture is blue in the middle is water. It was raining outside and the cat was just outside my glass door. As you can see the photo is taken at an angle and some portion of the glass is not wet because the rain wasn’t evenly falling on it, hence the imperfection happened in the photo.

Monday, June 18, 2012

Todays topic is “Something we don't know about you”. Well I am not so sure if anyone who reads this blog, know this about me or not but the person who made this mug definitely did. Says a lot about me! Have a great day!

Sunday, June 10, 2012

After horrible weather throughout the week, the weekend shows some promise with a silver of sunshine. Here is a picture from a beautiful part of the world where I have spent some memorable time. This photo was taken in Lizard Point, Cornwall. the last tip of land called the southern most part of England, before the vast Atlantic Ocean begins.

Saturday, June 9, 2012

I know this topic is about my view and believe me I had one ready for the post but at last moment, I changed my mind and decided to share my dentist’s view.I found this notice on the board while waiting for my turn to be checked, in the same clinic. Can we call this aFreudian Slip?

Thursday, June 7, 2012

On my Spanish holiday day 3, we went to a cafe called Horchata Daniel which is very famous for a regional drink called "Horchata". It's an ancient drink originated in Valencia at the time of Muslim period, made of tigernuts. The drink was served with crushed ice, a perfect drink one would wish on a warm evening to cool down. Amazing. If you want to read more about my Spanish holiday, then read Spain- Valencia –Day 1, Spain – Morella – Day 2 and Spain – Valencia – Day 3

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Today’s prompt is hat and we just finished celebrating the four day long Diamond Jubilee celebration here in the UK. This picture is from her visit to St. Paul Cathedral for the service of thanksgiving.

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

This picture I took near Lizard point, UK. There are several coves in and around this area where you can go for a walk. This particular one was at the entrance of a beautiful village. It is a really beautiful place with sea view and lots of greenery. It almost feels like you are in a fairy tale land.

Monday, June 4, 2012

I had taken this picture quite some time ago. As you already guessed this is a pavlova with whipped cream and berries. A perfect summer dessert. Very light and melt in the mouth dish. The photo is a close-up look on a slice of the meringue, with the rest of the meringue in the background. I made this for a fellow foodie’s recipe testing. You can read more about it here and enjoy the visual treat in both posts. Have a great day.

Sunday, June 3, 2012

This is my favourite prompt of the lot. AlthoughFatMumSlim has given the option of interpreting the meaning literally or it could be your to-do list. I decided to go with the literal meaning due to obvious reasons. I have seen many pasta clicks like this before and always wanted to take one. Never happened until recently. The dish is meat-ball spaghetti in tomato sauce and one of my favourites too.

Saturday, June 2, 2012

This stretch of the road, Highway 1 was empty for quite some distance when we were driving back form LA to San Francisco early in the morning on a winter day. It was one of the most beautiful drives I have done so far.

Friday, June 1, 2012

Last 2 weeks was full of sunshine and lovely weather here. We were enjoying every precious bit of it. This morning when I woke up I saw the weather has gone back to it’s typical cloudy, windy, cold type and the prompt for today is ‘morning’. I had no choice but to take picture of a gloomy morning. To cheer up the mood here goes my smoking cup of morning coffee with a book by the window.